Sunday, June 16, 2013

Waterloo Mini Maker Faire

Yesterday three other members of hacklab and I road tripped to the Waterloo Mini Maker Faire, a gathering of about 40 makers showing their work to the public. It was free entry, so they didn't charge tickets or even keep track of attendance, but there was a very steady crowd of people at the "Hacklab Propaganda Booth" (I titled it that as a joke, I figured the organizers would edit it, but apparently they liked the joke too!), so I figure several thousand people made their way through the faire. They had a wonderful venue, the big lobby of Kitchener City Hall. They basically filled the downstairs area, and a little of the outdoor area, but there was an entire second level overlooking the downstairs which had lots of space but no exhibits - plenty of room for growth for next time! Hacklab showed off our Ultimaker 3D printer, Fumon's flipdot display playing the game of snake, my electronic jewelry and North Paw compass anklet, a mecanum wheel robot (sadly not working), and a really cool USB microscope which you could use to look at some old UV-PROMs that we had, as well as various coins, skin, hair, etc - microscopes are very cool and playful! Much fun was had by all!

Some of the great things I saw outside of our booth (in order of the Waterloo Maker Faire 2013 Flickr Set): awesome wooden mechanical models and contraptions, cairo coat wearables jacket with cool diffusers, cheap LIDAR using home etched circuits, various light sabers, Replicator 2X 3D printer, Mascot Heads by Agnes, MYO prototypes, miniatures figurines including one I made for free, heart circuit with 4 blinking modes, amazing steampunk / mad science sculptures and machines by Russel Zeid, super cute recombinant bicycle for a 3-year old, cyber-netimals: stuffed toys with circuit and computer stuff attached; sadly no active electronics :-(, the hacklab booth (pictured right), wooden puzzles, some general shots of the space, people learning how to solder.